Thursday, 23 February 2012

Cynthia Bower, head of the CQC has resigned. She says its time to move on (no doubt she's found a more lucrative public sector non-job somewhere else)

Not before time, as all the organisation has been doing since it's inception has been re-inventing the wheel. Or if you'd like another analogy, a spinning wheel with no traction.

Replacing already working, workable and good practices with dogmatic, unworkable regimes isn't the way to improve care, especially as it entails taking one's eye off the ball. That particular ball being actually improving and regulating the standard of care in the country.

With a number of high profile failures over its life, it was about time someone at the top went. Unfortunately I don't imagine for one second that things will improve, given the types of people employed in the higher echelons of the CQC.

Steeped in the public service culture they are about as out of touch with reality as you can possibly be. My disdain for such people stems from my dealings with them in local government, social services and other public agencies. A professional committee member is a professional committee member, even if their roots were more practical.

Heaping more and more paperwork on healthcare professionals isn't the way to improve care: all it does is take hardworking people away from the job they should be providing, it adds costs to healthcare without benefits and because paperwork is so easily managed to provide a rosy picture even in the worst run homes, it doesn't prevent poor care standards.

Its about time the CQC got it's act together and started to improve the quality and depth of it's inspections and started routing out the bad establishments that I know for a fact exist and continue to run despite (and probably because of) the CQC and its ineffective executives.

Greece's military have prior form for taking control of the government in the past.

All it would take would be the will of the people to be strong enough to ask the military to act on their behalf and wrest political control away from the corrupt government and the EU-imposed puppet Papademos.

Especially if there is any truth in the rumours of the terms of the latest "bailout" (read buttfucking) of the Greek nation. Especially as it appears more than just a bailout. Its a wholesale asset strip of the country and a real and malevolent attempt to rub the noses of the Greek people into the dirt.

Just when will the Greek people say enough is enough and demand military intervention in order to protect their national assets and put those responsible for the rape of their country and the death of their democracy on trial?

Or have Greece's military been seduced by the junkets, hookers and easy money available on EU expenses like all the rest of the elite?

Sunday, 19 February 2012

Its interesting for quoting Tim Yeo, chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Committee sounding off about how the UK is in the lead globally on tidal power and how we invest in it in order not to lose the lead.

However, also quoted in the BBCs report is the committee's report titled The Future of Marine Renewables in the UK only concentrates on the sort tidal power that uses propellers inserted into the tidal stream to generate electricity.

For some unfathomable reason, the report body-swerves around tidal barrages, which is curious. Except when you take into consideration the ecological impact. I'm sure a barrage looks hideous to an ecologist and the fact that the tides in the estuary or harbour are disrupted, which will put the twitchers up in arms. But the submerged propellers aren't free from ecological impact either: what about the fish swimming through the devices, especially prized and rare species? What about mammals such as seals and dolphins? How will they fare when the devices are installed in their territory?

The omission of barrages is curious because tidal barrages are more efficient and although initially expensive to engineer, are most likely cheaper to maintain. They are more efficient because all of the water is harnessed, all of the tidal stream is used to create energy. The propeller devices have the tidal stream spilling past them, and they only use a tiny fraction of that tidal energy. Of course the propellers, being submerged are harder to maintain. In fact they have to include expensive raising mechanisms to haul them out of the water for maintenance. Compare that with a nice, dry turbine hall housed within a concrete barrage.

So, we know they are inefficient so guess what? Yep, they'll be hideously expensive (the article states 5 times more expensive than onshore wind). Hideously expensive translates as "unprofitable without subsidies", which in essence is what the Committee's report is saying: the taxpayer should stump up billions in subsidies to keep us at the forefront of an inefficient technology that no-one can afford and that those less ecologically inclined will ignore in favour of more efficient barrages.

Makes you wonder with all these subsidies for all of these unprofitable technologies; the companies involved must have bloody good lobbyists....

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